Liberated Office

It's been a lot longer than we planned between episodes, but we're happy to be back in 2026 with a great chat with Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation who maintain the wonderful LibreOffice suite. We chat about why it's important to have alternatives to Microsoft Office, the history of LibreOffice, why a truly open document format is so important as well as random detours into the concept of modern word processors for vintage hardware! What's your view on LibreOffice and the reasons for needing alternatives to things like Office 365 and Google Docs? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to [email protected], or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server. If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page. Affiliate Promotion "Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you'll want to make sure it's kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn't really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too. Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn't in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up. Episode Links Mastodon Links: Jae: [email protected] James: [email protected] LibreOffice: [email protected] The Document Foundation [email protected] LibreOffice The Document Foundation Chapter Times 00:00:04: Introductions 00:07:39: Apple’s Open Source Contributions 00:10:10: Proprietary Software 00:13:39: Libre Office 00:18:26: Why Do We Need Alternatives to Microsoft Office 00:34:13: Misconceptions About Document Formats 00:43:04: Cloud & Privacy 01:05:08: The Importance of Updates 01:16:28: Wrapping Up Credits Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW Chapters (00:00:04) - Introductions(00:07:39) - Apple’s Open Source Contributions(00:10:10) - Proprietary Software(00:13:39) - LibreOffice(00:18:26) - Why Do We Need Alternatives to Microsoft Office?(00:34:13) - Misconceptions About Document Formats(00:43:04) - Cloud & Privacy(01:05:08) - The Importance of Updates(01:16:28) - Wrapping Up